Tone Deaf

My musical debut occurred in Mrs. Lyttle’s 4^th grade class, during our production of Dogs, Dogs, Dogs – a self-written parody of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical Cats. I played the inspired role of “Closet Girl,” a materialistic puppy, who along with her friends Snoodle, Anna Jean, and Tea Party were just four dogs in the group SCAT (no, at the time we were not aware of its meaning) looking to be adopted into a nice home.   At one point during rehearsals, we were recorded so that we could hear how it would sound to the audience (read: our parents).  When I heard myself belting out the lyrics, “Closet Girl’s my name/Without new clothes I wail/ I’m extremely trendy/From my head to my tail” (yes, I wrote them myself), I was shocked. When did my voice get so high and squeaky?  Why didn’t it match the pitch of the piano in the background?  

Since that fateful day in 1997, I have been well aware that while I love music, it is best if I don’t express this love by singing a capella in public.  When people ask me if I can sing, my reply is either “not well” or “very badly”.  Luckily, no one in my family is musically inclined (anyone who’s stood in front of us in church can attest to that), so I’ve never been too self-conscious about it.  But, imagine my dismay to learn that my coworker in Ghana, the girl who I would be living with for at least the first 4 months of my time here, was not only in Gospel Choir and an a capella group… but she also placed 3^rd in Dartmouth Idol 2010!! No joke, I was nervous. I feared that she would be mortally offended by my off-key renditions of Iyaz, Beyonce, even Ke$ha. THANK GOD – she’s not. At least, she hasn’t said anything to me yet…

But back to my point: I’ve found kindred spirits in Ghana. People here LOVE music, just like me! And, just like me, the ability to sing in key doesn’t really seem to matter! People here belt it out no matter how good they sound.  For the most part, it’s refreshing not to feel self-conscious. Occasionally though, I'll admit that I wish those who are tonally challenged (like me) were a tad more considerate of how they sound…  

Even though my past couple entries have been of a more serious and philosophical nature, I promise that life here is not all work and thinking about poverty.  It’s really fun too!! A large part of this is the presence of music everywhere: at the school’s morning and afternoon assemblies, at all the churches, on the radios of the local stores, and in our home.  Jamie and I have embraced the local genre, called HipLife, and have spent hours looking up lyrics, dancing around our room, and uploading songs from friends’ flashdrives.  We’ve also been to 3 (FREE!) concerts in the past 2 months.  Below are some of our favorites from what we’ve been listening to:

1) Sarkodie. He’s a Ghanaian rapper, who became famous last year when he won an award for being the “fastest rapper in Ghana”.  The first song of his we liked was called “Babe,” but we’ve recently gotten into “Borga”, shown below:

2) R2Bees. Apparently this groups name is an acronym for “Refuse to Be Broke”.  Given the popularity of their song “Kiss Your Hand” on the radio, I’d have to guess that they’re doing okay.  We really like it, and I’m posting it here because it’s a good example of the HipLife sound.  Enjoy!

3) Castro ft. Asamoah Gyan.  This song isn’t necessarily one of our favorites, but I think it’s worth including.  For those who watched Ghana in the World Cup quarterfinals, you might remember the missed penalty kick by Asamoah Gyan that cost Ghana the match.  Well, if that career fails him, he can always fall back on his budding music career… or not. Despite being hated on for spending time recording a music video when he should have apparently been practicing his penalty kicks, this song (African Girls – its kinda like a Ghanaian Mambe #5) gets a lot of airtime, and I personally like it a lot:

It’s not only homegrown Ghanaian music that is popular here.  The radios play a lot of Nigerian music (like PSquare), American hiphop (and even some American country!), and of course, Jamaican reggae.  Bob Marley is popular, no surprise there, but Jamie and I are slightly obsessed with the various remixes that we hear of this song: “Hold You” by Gyptian. She knew it from this past summer in the States, but as I didn’t hear it until after my arrival, it will forever remind me of Ghana:

So. That’s it. Well, that’s 4 samples of the 50 or so songs that we’ve become familiar with. But one thing that we don’t have access to is new American releases. So, for those of you who can, please comment or shoot me an email and let me know what’s playing on the radio, in the frat basements, etc. Iyaz’s “Solo” is getting way to much airtime on our speakers.  =)